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If you’ve always wanted to become an article writing and marketing expert, now’s your chance!

For the last few weeks, we’ve been telling you that we’re in the process of developing a brand new step-by-step training tool. A system that will not only help newbies get started, but also aid veterans in becoming more efficient and effective with their article writing and marketing efforts.

We are proud to introduce the EzineArticles Formula!

This 10-module training system has the power to forever alter the way you view article writing and marketing no matter how much experience you have.

Here are some of the topics we’ll be covering inside the EzineArticles Formula:

Getting Started with Article Marketing

Generating Article Ideas to Captivate Your Audience

Creating Article Titles That Get Results

Developing Writing Rituals That Work for You

Creating Results-Driven Author Bios

Driving Traffic to Your Site with Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Workbook exercises that will help you better understand the material and build your article writing and marketing skills

A bonus teleseminar with Christopher Knight, article marketing expert and CEO of EzineArticles.com

This is the most comprehensive article writing and marketing training course you will find anywhere! If you want to take advantage of the power of article writing to drive more traffic to your site, you don’t want to miss out on ordering the EzineArticles Formula!

Hopefully we’re contributing to your traffic. After all… that is why we exist: To be your highest non-search engine referer of traffic…. especially if you really engage our system with hundreds of articles.

On a daily basis, we deliver 150k-225k clicks to our members…. not to mention media exposure and we hear every week that EzineArticles was the matchmaker that introduced a major media outlet with one of our expert authors. :)

For years we’ve delivered nothing but free content and we’ve heard from thousands of members who have told us they are still lost in a sea of free info.

That’s why I hired a team of people to organize and create courseware that would give a sequential A to Z step-by-step process that is the most comprehensive training product we’ve ever created.

In addition, we’re using data collected from hundreds of thousands of emails to our member support team to identify where the pain points are so that we could ensure this training product solves hundreds of questions that are asked.

Lastly, others can create article writing and marketing courses, but no one has our billions of datapoints that spans tens of terabytes of data to draw distinctions and conclusions that can save our members significant amounts of time while increasing their traffic ROI.

I expected it to be free. Only when i started reading the comments did I start to think that there might be a price. It had better be something exceptional if it is going to cost and I am not sold so far……

I feel that if EzineArticles is spending the time to develop the course, then it has some value and deserves a cost. With that said, I also have to agree with what others have said, that being if EzineArticles helps to make better writers out of us, then they will likely be getting more traffic in the future as well. This should more than cover the cost of the course. The problem is when writers take the course and don’t provide future content to EzineArticles. I think the way to go would be to offer the course for a small price (to eliminate those who are looking for something for nothing and just to use elsewhere) and at the same time offer a full reimbursement if a certain number of articles (reasonable) are contributed within the next year. This would be a sure win-win situation both both parties. No need to charge someone who will bring in future revenue via articles and traffic.

BUT, we’ll still be motivated to give free training, article writing and marketing insights and much of the usual stuff you’ve come to expect from us without charge as our investment in you as a productive and engaged member. :)

Often we see no correlation between the free training we’ve offered and member engagement… yet we plan on continuing it because it’s the right relationship thing to do and it genuinely helps our members get what they want. Win-Win.

For those who want the structure and insights that will only be available in a fee-based product, that will be next Tuesday.

Two years ago when we launched our Premium membership services level, I think we messed up and created a product that only appealed to 1-2% of our members rather than appealing to 98% of our membership base.

This 10 module, 5 week course is going to attempt to over-deliver like nothing we’ve done to date with hopes that our charter owners of this product will help us with written & video testimonials.

I hope you’ll forgive me and us a bit as we find our way with how to deliver this new course. Your feedback gets integrated into every decision we make and is always appreciated.

Free?? You seriously think they would post a come-on type blog entry, and tell us they are limiting the membership on the webinars, AND ask us to sign up for a special “early alert” or whatever — and have a FREE course in mind?

Really that naive, eh?

Sorry. No rudeness intended. My “sarcasm button” has been pressed way too much today, I guess. LOL!

I would be very, VERY amazed if this proves to be a free course. And I don’t mean to imply it should be free. If they have indeed worked hard in packaging value, then I assume they are fully justified in charging for it.

Yes, it would indeed be good to get a post with more specifics on content and pricing information. Thank you, Chris, for acknowledging that.

Given the amount of work they have gone through to create this system, this website, the video, etc., I doubt very much that this package would be free. Nor it should be if the content is as good as the bullets points above indicate.

It is important to evaluate the ROI of the price vs. the potential increased sales for one’s sites.

I feel it would be foolish to at lave a look at the offer. 500 places will go very quickly.

I’ve learned through experience not to sign up for pre-launch courses. The reason that the price is not mentioned is because it is probably high. They are trying to pre-sell everyone and build hype, in hopes of generating sales.

If you aren’t interested in signing up for the list – and don’t appreciate a little mystery in your marketing – simply skip it.

Relax, take a few deep breaths and try to regain your emotional equlibrium before you sort of stick a few more pixels in your metaphorical mouth.

I’m pretty sure EzineArticles knows what they are selling.

I think the idea above was….. WE don’t know what the value proposition is, not EzineArticles.

Reading things carefully, is usually a powerful precursor to making an intelligent argument.

Hype didn’t go out with the hula hoop….and while I’m a bit surprised to see EzineArticles do the lunatic launch approach with an article marketing product that would seem to be inconsequential from an overall revenue standpoint…….who cares?

And if trying to build a little anticipation is part of the fun – why should you so vociferously object?

Don’t buy it – move on – and all will be well with the world, Darryl, I promise.

Like Charlie Page, the owner of the DOE said, Free Ads do not work to sell products.They work for testing various elements. you’ve got to find a way to reach your audience for a price that we can afford, Chris.
Of course, I do appreciate the effort, work & time spent in creating this product & I whole-heartedly give you my support. Only please make it affordable for people like me.

Well, I am excited and really want to take advantage of it. But I really am hoping it’s not too costly. I don’t mind paying for excellent information, but my website is new and my cash flow is not flowing yet. So it will be interesting to see what the cost will be next Tuesday.

I too am wary when someone talks up the next “AMAZING” thing but won’t mention the price before launch. Anyway, why the pre-launch hype anyway? We would all be interested in taking a look when the product was relaeased and make a judgement based on the information and price(if any) on the day.

Well, this blog post seems to have stirred up some interest. Looking forward to the release date. But I may not have the needed cash. Maybe we can work out some barter arrangement. (Like giving you my nephew as a slave for a week, lol.)

In addition to price I need to know what time of day or night the webinars will take place – living in a very different time zone I am concerned that the webinars may be in the early hours of the morning :-)

Chris, I’m just wondering why you are limiting the membership numbers, and how many people you’ll be accepting? Surely it would be to your benefit for as many EzineArticles members as possible to buy & use the course?

I’ll certainly be interested if it’s affordable to me. I don’t understand why some people think they should get everything for free – I doubt they’d do their jobs/run their businesses for nothing!

I’m assembling almost a dozen people this morning to take the feedback learned from your feedback and others in this thread so that the next blog post I make will reformulate our offering into something I hope will be less confusing.

You are right.

It is silly to limit the number of students that will become owners of the EzineArticles Formula product… therefore, we won’t do that.

It is true that if you make an investment in a product you would expect some return for it. I view cloak and dagger marketing very suspiciously.
Be upfront and boast the value of the course by also announcing the price.

I was asking how anyone (I meant a future owner of the EzineArticles Formula product) could make a thumbs up or thumbs down decision as to whether it’s worth it until all of the cards have been laid out.

I don’t think you’ve anything amiss here. Marketing and teasing something out to generate interest and curiosity – as it has clearly done – is simply a marketing technique.

I’m not looking forward to a product that is highly priced – but you know what? We’ve all had a rather symbiotic relationship with EzineArticles and blithely assume that they owe us some more freebies…

I’m a capitalist. I think you should charge for it. I fail to see the “issue” or big to-do here. Personally, if you can’t buy it – don’t. If you can, then do so.

Otherwise, let the man work. He’s no different than any of us: he’s in it for the money. Problem?

Informative Article!!! I liked this. Actually web designing and promotion are related to each other because there is no profit from website development if not promoted. Well I have read some of these blogs and I found them very informative and interesting. I liked them.

I look forward to this product for one main reason, and with one main concern.

1. EzineArticles have got the insider information on what works across a multitude of niches, article styles, lengths etc. It would be good just for the statistical analysis alone.

2. However, EzineArticles want to up their own revenue and in one sense they are in competition with the authors with regards to clicks! It is either EzineArticles’s ads or authors links.

I would like to see explained how EzineArticles are going to give us the very best advice (which they have for me so far, I believe) but still increase their own profits. I guess it works for them on sheer numbers.

The one thing that intrigues me the most is click through rate. How that relates to the structure of your bio, how it relates to the structure of the article, and how it relates to your title etc. Also, does it differ niche to niche?

What I do have trouble with is the approach that treats those of us who are professionals as though we are rubes. The oldest sales tactic in the book is not revealing the price until the mark has made the mental commitment and has to have the product. That is not how to treat fellow professionals on whom you depend.

The defense that you have not yet figured out the pricing is either a laughable dodge or just not very bright. Admit that we caught you acting like a salesman with slicked down hair and wearing a cheap plaid jacket and move on.

For my purpose in writing articles, EzineArticles is a convenience. I can meet my goals in several other ways. Assuming that your clients are stuck with you, and then not treating them with respect, is a dangerous proposition

The bad part about all this was that I was considering signing up for the course. After about 2 minutes of thought I had to ask myself (1) is this course going to be hype or deliver value, and (2) will this course focus on tricks to do shoddy and unethical work on the same level of sophistication as the initial marketing approach. I can’t come up with a reasonable assurance I will not waste my time and money.

PS – “Enter Above Phrase to the Box below” (see the line immediately below the type-in-the-letters challenge) is not acceptable grammar, at least not at a professional level.

1. Who is your target customer for this new training program?
2.What do you know about your target customer?
3. What ‘pain’ or ‘problem’ does the course resolve for your customer?
4 How many people ‘want’ your new course?

In my experience a prospective customer offered a new product generally asks three questions. So what? Who cares? What’s in it for me?

How do you ‘answer’ these questions to the satisfaction of your target customer?

Beginner to intermediate members of EzineArticles.com who have either not submitted their first article yet or have submitted up to 250 articles.

Over 250+ article submissions and the member would be considered high intermediate to advanced and our perception based on questions asked by members with 250+ articles live tell us that they have a different set of challenges than someone who hasn’t submitted their first article to someone who hasn’t reached the 250+ article level yet.

2/3) We know they are frustrated, they may hate writing or think they can’t write, they feel intimidated and the whole article writing and marketing process is complicated, they fear wasting their time trying a model that they are unsure will work them and their business. Members are unsure about how to write or tell about themselves but are unsure how to not write a promotional article.

4) Based on the half a million email questions we received in member support, it’s clear to us that a highly structured course is needed beyond the free training we currently offer. How many will want this new course is unknown. Only the market can decide.

2/3) We know they are frustrated, they may hate writing or think they can’t write, they feel intimidated and the whole article writing and marketing process is complicated, they fear wasting their time trying a model that they are unsure will work them and their business. Members are unsure about how to write or tell about themselves but are unsure how to not write a promotional article.

4) Based on the half a million email questions we received in member support, it’s clear to us that a highly structured course is needed beyond the free training we currently offer. How many will want this new course is unknown. Only the market can decide.

I’m nearly certain that your meeting has been held, and has ended, yet I felt compelled to respond to the above points.

As the “EzineArticles Formula” is targeted to the beginner (mostly), and knowing that to make money, one must “invest” money, I hope the price point that you and your team decide upon reflects the level that your target market is at, with regards to their likely income (investment ability).

Maybe to help “the market decide”, an appealing price point (again, based on a beginner’s likely level of investment ability) will be considered…

Why no price? – Because, they want to see how many people sign up for this “pig in a poke” before working out how much they think they can charge for it. Simple economics of supply and demands.

Why the “must sign up” hype – To make you feel that you have already invested something in this product, which you will lose if you don’t go ahead and buy it.

Why the “1 hour early” hype: To create a false sense of urgency, implying that this information is so very important that you will gain some advantage by getting it 1 hour early. Gee-whizz, is this some kind of sky bound, self-destructing rocket!

Come on EzineArticles, drop all this cr*p, internet, self-promotion hype. We’ve all seen it a billion times before: Incredible must have product, that you are “so excited” about, that has manufactured false deadlines, etc. etc.

Next, I bet, we’ll learn that there are only a “limited number” available…

Oh, and while you’re at it, why don’t you try the old tricks of “introductory prices soon to increase” and the “buy now and get these free supplements worth $XXXX free”.

If you have a value product, put up an information page with full details and price and let the consumer decide just how “fantastic” it is.

Personally, I believe that the vast majority of people that obtain this product will be doing little more than increasing the size of their [unused, unread, forgotten] selfware…

Christopher,
This blog post sure has gotten a lot of attention! Maybe that was the intention, and if not, at least as you mentioned you’ve gotten some good ideas from the comments. Maybe this would be a good topic for an Ezines Article? Anyone?……
The comments started off pretty constructive but more recently they seem to be on the borderline of being ridiculous, and pure spam.
I wanted to follow up from my earlier comment and also add a few things-
1) My previous comment was merely suggesting idea’s. I have no problem with paying for a product that has value.
2) For those saying that expecting something for free is ridiculous, I personally wouldn’t be “expecting” something for free. Rather, If I owned a business and produced a product or service (or ecourse in this instance) that was going to help my contributors (or employees in a bricks and mortar business) be more efficient and produce greater results, it would greatly benefit me to provide it free, or at least at a very reasonable cost. Most companies don’t typically charge their employees for training and they have have great success. Just because time and money is spent producing something, doesn’t mean it can’t be given away for free, as long as the return is greater than the investment. I give away my knowledge for free every day. Do I earn nothing for my time and effort? Hell no. Of course I earn something.

Whatever you decide to do, I’m sure it will be the right decision, and if not, you know that you can always make some changes to make it right.

Not meaning to, you built us up – we were say yes, to all your questions, but then when we were to the point of making a decision, we were left frustrated and disappointed. This only smacks of lack of knowledge and experience! I would recommend you invest in Ali Brown’s material on Launching a Product. She shows you step by step how to build anticipation, how much to share and when. This way you won’t have negative, disappointed, frustrated feedback. It wasn’t intentional, just uneducated. I wish you the best.

Hi Chris,
Looking forward to the new product. I’m new and
my first submission to you guys bought me a fair amount of traffic. I hope this product can boost
things and is affordable for a newbie. Thanks.

Perhaps a phone call to a local Jr. College for those interested in the cost of an education might help. It seems to me that the course being offered is not an and/or offer. If a person does not want the course, they can continue to summit articles “FOR FREE’ and get posted. It might take them a lot longer to reach the results they seek, but they still have this option. For those like myself, education is very important, and I understand there is a cost to get it. So I will wait until I see the cost, and if I can afford it, I will be there.

I agree that knowing the price would be beneficial, on the other hand, being clear on the value proposition is much better. For me, I have been writing articles for years for EzineArticles, my articles are everywhere yet I am still not capitalizing on this widespread “fame”.
The value to me will be learning how to finally convert my articles into revenue generating pieces. Bring it on – just keep the price low enough that most people are willing to participate. Thanks Chris – this is much needed

What’s with all the whining about price? You’ve been getting tons of valuable free info for years. How much has that been worth to your online businesses?

EzineArticles has taken the initiative to gather together their most useful info into a course and they should charge for it. Don’t you charge for courses you’ve created?

This post simply announced the upcoming launch and asked for your email address. Standard pre-launch practice in the industry. When’s the last time Apple announced a new product and immediately gave you the price? NEVER. They overhype to drive demand, knowing all the loyal Macheads will buy no matter what.

Put your name on the list if you’re interested and unsubscribe if the price doesn’t meet your budget. Simple.

I don’t get the negative comments and the expectations of a freebie. Do any of you work for free? Do you sell your products and services for free? Why do you expect something that required so much work to create to be free?

The real value of something free is questionable. Many people never complete free training courses and they certainly rarely ever act on something they learned for free. The most value I ever received from from any kind of training was coaching that cost me several hundred dollars. Finding the money for that coaching left me very invested in the outcome.

Here the question is who is beneficiary? EzineArticles and Authors both get benefit. Who is deriving more? The body getting more should bear the cost of development. Or it can be in another way, magnanimity and fame of the person grow when something is given free. But definitely do so only when you can afford.

I am portrayed as an “EzineArticles Expert Author”. I have ten live articles. I still have a lot to learn in this business of writing and am working on it, but, will not be able to buy this offered educational format. I enjoy all your tips and guidance sent to me free and endeavor to write better every time. Wish I could afford to buy this offer.
What is this “EzineArticles Expert Author mug”? Do I get it too?
I would love it.

The EzineArticles Expert Author mug gets sent to members upon reaching a certain milestone in their membership … what that milestone is remains a bit of a secret since we like our members to be surprised when the receive the mug. Suffice to say, if you keep submitting high-quality articles on a regular basis, you will soon see one in your mailbox. :-)

Unbelievable, are people that naive to think that there is such a thing as a free lunch. Everyone thats bitched about the cost needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

EzineArticles exists to drive FREE traffic to your website but they are also a business with overheads and costs. Last time I looked i didn’t see a single quality course available that had had time and money invested into it, being given away for free, in fact I would be more dubious if it was free.

Don’t forget guys if you you don’t like it, return it, no brainer really.

Hi Chris :)
having had two (according to our small business) big launches this year myself (in which both I didn’t use blog commentsas pre launch tool!) I was really amazed about the power, some destructive people can have in a blog comment thread, if you have previously given it to them …
Good luck for ur launch anyway! I love article writing and using articles in marketing and for SEO purposes… so I’m looking forward to what u guys will be offering and had no problem, opting in to ur early bird list either … by the way, I do this quite often, if a product seems to be interesting to me … I don’t see this as dangerous, just as a possibility I hardly ever use in the end …

I understand the hype but writing articles to get traffic is a free online strategy. If you are offering a course it should be reasonable.
I hate that so many are so negative. If the course is only a few dollars that won’t be bad.
I like the idea that you would get free after so many articles. That is kind of a win win. There are a lot of courses being sold that do target article marketing so you having one would be like getting it from the source. Not a bad idea. But what will you teach that we haven’t learned in the other courses? That is the important part.
Thanks, Looking forward to hearing more.
Mary

Ok, I read the first few posts, put it down for a couple of days and just now skimmed through the rest of the posts. I did not see a price point yet, Christopher, other than the “much less than $1997.” Released one yet?

I have 29 live and 2 pending articles (and writing another tonight). I’m taking a fundraising course, writing a fundraising and marketing plan for a non-profit, adding content to my 18 websites, plus content to two that are not mine, running a guiding business, teaching a high school math course, administering a small private school, keeping a household, attending my son’s soccer practice and games, occasionally kayaking, and …well, I’m not sure I can add on anything else, no matter what the price point is!

By the time I had my Master’s degree, I knew how to dig up information and apply it. I have done almost all of this on my own, so a free course would be used by me, if I have the time to do it and it has valuable information.

On the side of EzineArticles, I don’t give my hiking and kayaking tours away, either. Good content will command the price you ask. Give some content for free to show how really powerful this is going to be and the negativity will stop.

Go on, Christopher. I could use the course, yes; yet, I just might not have the time, so I cannot guarantee a sale to me.